


after italian

by ConvenientAlias



Category: How to Get Away with Murder
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-11
Updated: 2019-02-11
Packaged: 2019-10-26 03:28:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17738132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConvenientAlias/pseuds/ConvenientAlias
Summary: When the Worst Year Ever comes to a close, Annalise decides to take Wes out for dinner to celebrate.





	after italian

**Author's Note:**

  * For [enemyofperfect](https://archiveofourown.org/users/enemyofperfect/gifts).



When the Worst Year Ever comes to a close, and all the finals are over and Annalise has finished grading all the finals that have been passed in (…delegating a lot of that work to Bonnie, actually), Annalise decides to take Wes out for dinner to celebrate.

She almost does the responsible professor thing and takes out all of the Keating Five, but she quickly talks herself out of it. They see each other in a herd constantly, even eat together constantly—they won’t want to celebrate the end of this year together, they’ll want to do it in their separate bunches, Asher and Michaela and Connor together, and Laurel off with Bonnie because those two herd together after the disappearance of Frank, and haven’t they been lovely company since then, always talking about… Besides, she doesn’t want to have dinner with people who regularly look at her as if she’s a monster, a murderer, when she’s done nothing but help them.

And yes, Wes has done the same thing sometimes—quite often, really—but at least he lo-likes her. He gets mad and suspicious and depressed, but she knows he also likes her, in ways the others… don’t. There’s meat to his feelings for her.

She wants to be with someone who feels nice things about her like that. And celebrate.

So she takes Wes out to dinner. He’s a little shocked at the invitation. But he accepts. They go out to an Italian place, and she orders chicken parmesan and he orders three cheese pasta.

“Is there something you wanted to talk about?” he asks as they wait.

“Not in particular. I just thought it would be nice to get dinner.”

He looks at her, and she can tell he doesn’t believe there’s no catch. Always something, when she’s being nice. Some task for him to complete, or a question she wants to ask him, or some reason she has to reassure him… She puts her hand on his. “I just thought,” she repeats, “it would be nice to get dinner.”

“Well, it is nice. But I hope you remember you’re paying.”

“Smart alec. Of course I am.” She’s seen his apartment. She’s seen the kinds of clothes he thinks are good enough for professional attire. Yeah, she knows what he can and can’t afford.

Besides, she’s taking a student out. It’s her treat.

They eat. They talk. It’s a public space, so they can’t talk about murder or Wes’ father or any of those complicated tangles that make things between them so difficult. It’s good, in a way, to avoid those subjects, even if they hang between them. Far too often Annalise finds herself coming at matters bluntly lately, wearing herself raw with truths. Dancing around them is preferable.

And speaking of dancing.

The evening isn’t over, so they head over to a club. Wes is hesitant, but she insists. “You need to enjoy yourself more, Wes. And yes, I’ll pay here, too. Stop worrying.”

“Okay.”

She gets him on the dance floor. He’s a gawky kind of dancer. His legs are long like he never grew into them as a teenager, and it’s clear he doesn’t get out much. But after some cajoling, he focuses. He puts his hands on her waist and pulls her close, and they rock together. The music goes fast or slow, doesn’t matter, they just rock. Mesmerized.

She finds her head has dropped onto his chest. He is holding her. Rocking, rocking. When she was pregnant, she bought herself a rocking chair in preparation for the baby. It was always so calm. She thinks, does this make Wes calm? Or is it Wes that calms her instead?

She doesn’t know who takes care of who in this relationship.

They wind their way off the dance floor, but outside, the air is almost as sticky. Inside is crowded, but it has air conditioning. It’s getting hot these days. Annalise doesn’t want to go back in, though. She leans against her car door and Wes walks up to her and kisses her.

It is the natural conclusion of the evening, of course. Of the evening. Of the year. He kisses softly, gently—as she grips his back, she thinks of how she used to watch him with Rebecca. Always too much PDA, those two. She’d watched and thought to herself how Rebecca wasn’t good enough for him, no one was good enough for him, her precious, precious…

_(son)_

He pulls away to suck in the humid air and catch his breath. The kiss was soft for her, but it was intense for him, it seems. He looks at her expectantly, and she opens the car door. A rush of stale, baked air streams out.

“We’ll have to wait a minute,” she says. “Be patient.”

“Annalise.”

They climb in, but leave the engine off and the windows open. It’s a bad angle, kissing in the front seat, always is. And it makes her think of evening spent with Nate—she went with Nate even while she knew Wes, she thinks, and it feels like cheating, thinking about those nights, in ways it didn't before.

They drive home to his apartment instead of her house. Too many people likely to drop by her house these days, even if Wes jokingly insists that the only one really likely to show up is _him_ —Bonnie’s always in and out, and the others don’t always warn either. She doesn’t want them to walk in on this, know about this.

His apartment is a crime scene. Scratches in the wall. Probably traces of Rebecca deep in the mattresses. But everywhere’s a crime scene, these days, and when Annalise pushes Wes onto the bed, she feels like a crime.

Premeditated, even though she’d swear she didn’t plan this out.

He kisses her. He likes kissing. She fucks him, and he likes it. He curls around her when it’s done, expecting her to stay in bed with him, and she has business to attend to, better things to do with the rest of the night, but she does. She stays.

She half expects him to talk in his sleep, say “Rebecca” or accuse her of murder. But he is calm. She is the insomniac. Lying awake, thinking over what she’s done tonight. How she can fit it into her tangle. Whether this will be the only time, or just the first. What’s more trouble: keeping a student as a lover, or pacifying a rejected puppy? And Wes can be so much trouble…

She doesn’t remember falling asleep. She doesn’t dream. But she wakes up and Wes is already out of bed and dressed, and they eat the leftovers of the last night’s dinner. He kisses her before she heads out the door, and tells her, “Take care of yourself”, which, in the world they live in, is more than an empty platitude. The lovely thing about Wes is that he means it. He might even still suspect her of killing Rebecca, or a thousand other things, but he still wants her to take care of herself—wants her, period—and as she walks away, a small part of her is at peace.


End file.
